Name: The Blank Slate
ISBN: 9780142003343

The Blank Slate

In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits-a doctrine held by many intellectuals during the past century-denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts. Injecting calm and rationality into debates that are notorious for ax-grinding and mud-slinging, Pinker shows the importance of an honest acknowledgment of human nature based on science and common sense.

What Hacker News says

FabHKMay 2024

> the Tabula Rasa theory is wrong

Good book about precisely this (and in agreement with your statement) is cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker's 2002 book The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate

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golemotronMar 2023

I didn't know there were any pure nurturists left. The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker is worth reading.

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golemotronDec 2021

> Why would psychologists believe something so clearly wrong?

Because they are scared of the slippery slope in questions of nature vs. nurture. Steven Pinker's book 'The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature' explores this topic and the cultural antecedents of naive nurturism.

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jmfldnDec 2021

Here's my list of mainly non-fiction.

The Blank Slate - Stephen Pinker

Capitalist Realism - Mark Fisher

Straw Dogs - John Gray

Godel Esher Bach - Douglas Hoffstader

The Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac

Path with a Heart - Jack Kornfield

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kleer001May 2021

> An ape can leave its group and move to a different territory and not have someone else decide his life for him.

Ah, the myth of the noble savage taken to evolutionary extreme.

I highly recommend Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate" if you'd like to disabuse yourself of this pernicious old wives tale. Then his "Better angels of our nature" should fix you right up with a more accurate and informed view of the world and society we live in.

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mybridApr 2021

Most people commenting on human nature have no formal education in it. A good place to start is Steven Pinker's, "The Blank Slate, The Modern Denial of Human Nature." Claiming everyone should find something easy is a blank slate statement.

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